<p>“There is a reason why we passed child labor laws.
Children need time to be children- & spending the bulk of their time with other children does not take away their ability to contribute.”</p>
<p>This post about children misses the point of the book, as expressed in the title, the endless ADOLESCENCE. It’s about TEENAGERS not being giving the chance to become emerging adults. Rather, they are being kept in an artificially long adolescence because their parents fear there are too many dangerous things out there, the neighborhood isn’t safe, there are germs everywhere, they might get a B and not get into a good college…and how this contributes to generalized anxiety and conditions such as anorexia, unhappiness, senior slump, and other conditions that mostly affect overprotected middle-class teens, not neglected ones. Some modern teens have gone from being contributors to the family to just beneficiaries of others’ efforts. Mom and Dad both work two jobs so Junior can just focus on her GPA and college aps, go on school trips to Europe, have private flute lessons, SAT tutoring, etc, etc. But all this largesse heaped on Junior comes with strings attached- the burden to get straight A’s, be first chair in the youth orchestra, get into a top-tier school. It’s a lot of pressure that some can’t handle. It also sets up a sense of entitlement that can’t possibly be maintained in this economy unless Ms. Junior marries Mark Zuckerberg. When asked about getting a job this past summer, one of my D’s friends (college freshman) told her father, “I’ll get a job when Mom gets a job.” She took two overseas trips instead, to Europe and Costa Rica, and went to a movie and dinner every other night of the summer, courtesy of Mom and Dad.</p>